The Burgomaster's Wife — Complete eBook

the course of years, it has become a habit to swear
by him. Folly, you will think, but I know what
I know, and now I must go. We will have another
talk this evening, but about other matters. Yes,
everybody in this world is a little crackbrained, but
at least I don’t bore other people. I only
show my craze to intimate friends, and strangers who
ask me once about the fore man Roland rarely do so
a second time. The score, bar-maid—­There
it is again. We must see whether the towers are
properly garrisoned, and charge the sentinels to keep
their eyes open. If you come prepared for battle,
you may save yourself a walk, I’ll answer for
nothing to-day. You will probably pass the new
Rhine. Just step into my house, and tell my wife
she needn’t wait supper for me. Or, no,
I’ll attend to that myself; there’s something
in the air, you’ll see it, for I have the Roncesvalles
throat again.”

CHAPTER XVII.

In the big watch-house that had been erected beside
the citadel, during the siege of the city, raised
ten months before, city-guards and volunteers sat
together in groups after sunset, talking over their
beer or passing the time in playing cards by the feeble
light of thin tallow candles.

The embrasure where the officers’ table stood
was somewhat better lighted. Wilhelm, who, according
to his friend’s advice, appeared in the uniform
of an ensign of the city-guards, seated himself at
the empty board just after the clock in the steeple
had struck ten. While ordering the waiter to
bring him a mug of beer, Captain Allertssohn appeared
with Junker von Warmond, who had taken part in the
consultation at Peter Van der Werff’s, and bravely
earned his captain’s sash two years before at
the capture of Brill. As this son of one of the
richest and most aristocratic families in Holland,
a youth whose mother had borne the name of Egmont,
entered, he drew his hand, encased in a fencing glove,
from the captain’s arm and said, countermanding
the musician’s order:

“Nothing of that sort, waiter! The little
keg from the Wurzburger Stein can’t be empty
yet. We’ll find the bottom of it this evening.
What do you say, Captain?”

“Such an arrangement will lighten the keg and
not specially burden us,” replied the other.
“Good-evening, Herr Wilhelm, punctuality adorns
the soldier. People are beginning to understand
how much depends upon it. I have posted the men,
so that they can overlook the country in every direction.
I shall have them relieved from time to time, and at
intervals look after them myself. This is good
liquor, Junker. All honor to the man who melts
his gold into such a fluid. The first glass must
be a toast to the Prince.”

The three men touched their glasses, and soon after
drank to the liberty of Holland and the prosperity
of the good city of Leyden. Then the conversation
took a lively turn, but duty was not forgotten, for
at the end of half an hour the captain rose to survey
the horizon himself and urge the sentinels to vigilant
watchfulness.